1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a method, apparatus or computer program product for managing inventory data of a distributed cache provided by a plurality of wireless mobile communication devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mobile devices such as mobile telephones are commonly used for data intensive activities such as information retrieval. Such intensive data activities have a negative effect on a mobile communications network since data transmission capacity of the mobile communications network may be limited or expensive.
There are several potential solutions to this problem. One such solution comprises caching data in a distributed cache provided by the mobile devices themselves such that each mobile device provides part of the storage required for the cache, and that the cache is shared among a group of mobile devices. Different caching policies are provided, each aimed at improving effectiveness of the distributed cache. However, problems arise with some mobile caching systems because of their intrinsically opportunistic nature. Each mobile device must discover relevant data by scanning the caches of all neighboring devices. Periodically scanning all neighboring devices to determine if relevant data exists in the neighboring devices uses a significant amount of power.